Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success.

As organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavy-weight Type 1 decision-making process on most decisions, including many Type 2 decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention. We'll have to figure out how to fight that tendency.

Focus relentlessly and passionately on the customer.

I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. Not of our competition, but of our customers.

We hold as axiomatic that customers are perceptive and smart... But there is no rest for the weary.

It's not easy to work here, but we are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about.